“Are you sure he or she is boxing 24 toons? cause you got to be paid for to play on tle servers. meaning he or she is paying for 24 accounts just to play by themselves?”

It's just not possible to BOX 24 toons. Six maybe, with the right hardware setup, but I'm REAL dubious about 24. This would suggest someone using specific software to automate the group, which is forbidden under EQ2 rules (Rules of Conduct, ToS).

BOX means one person is at the keyboard, perhaps using a keyboard/mouse splitter (either hardware via a switch and cabling that sends keyboard and mouse signals to multiple PCs, or there is network software that does the same... the latter may not be "legal" according to EQ2 rules). In this case, the live human sets up the hotkeys and key bindings on the subordinate characters so that when the live human enters a command, that same command may cause the subordinate characters to do something as well. I press the "1" on my keyboard, casting the spell on my primary hotkey, which is an attack. The healers' "1" is a ward or a HOT or something. The bard's "1" is some kind of short term buff, etc. Boxxing is allowed under EQ2 rules (see links above), because a human is actually mashing the buttons that cause each action.

When you're talking about a whole RAID, things are different. Raids require you to do a variety of things, often following specific scripts. The scouts may need to do one thing, you may need two or more tanks splitting names to various places, and dealing with tank swaps. Healers need to focus on the tank(s) while also trying to keep everyone cured and their own group healthy. DPS has to work together, so that when Timewarp or Mimicry etc. is cast, everybody takes appropriate actions. Different classes may need to specifically attack or refrain from attacking at various points in a script. Characters need to joust while the tank continues holding the mob... This complexity is what makes raids fun for those who do them.

However, because of that complexity, you can't realistically BOX most raids. Instead, cheaters turn to automation software. There are programs out there that actually come with already-written scripting for specific raids. Because the individual toons are automated like ROBOTS, we term these BOTS for short. Botting is completely prohibited under EQ2's rules. The automation software moves toons to various places and causes them to take scripted actions, all without human intervention. The live human being just rakes in the plat and chests. I've never actually used any of this software, though I HAVE Googled and read up on it ("know yourself, know your enemy" -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War).

Raids tend to generate a lot of plat. Raid guilds usually do a plat split among their members, typically at the end of the month, and having been in a number of raids over the last decade, the money is pretty good, even for one player out of 24. The BOT operator, however, gets the whole kit and kaboodle, as well as being able to SLR or directly broker some of the gear. I suspect that most people running a BOT army are selling plat using RMT, which is again, against the EQ2 rules. Heck, we know that there are entire COMPANIES in East Asia and elsewhere that employ people at sweatshop prices to supervise BOT armies and rake in game money for the company, which then makes real world money selling game coinage to players.

I just don't get the point of paying for so many accounts just to raid by yourself. I thought *I* was occasionally anti-social.

And to the guy arguing that this is a silly thing for people to do on a server that won't last long, I award you my obligatory Morgan Freeman pic captioned with 'He's right you know!'. Doesn't depress me any less though

thing is greene, they're not paying for it themselves per say... they make the plat and buy kronos(yes someone somewhere has paid for the kronos at one point), there are sites dedicated to selling cheap plat and kronos however they've been gotten. after the initial payout for the toons, they pay for themselves with bot armies. there were guys running 45+ armies on the prog servers on eq1.

“Raids tend to generate a lot of plat. Raid guilds usually do a plat split among their members, typically at the end of the month, and having been in a number of raids over the last decade, the money is pretty good, even for one player out of 24.”

Not on TLE. It's about 10p per clear which is inefficient for people who run these crews. I've said as much previously in this thread. It will probably only make money once they start running Protector's Realm. I've run guilds on Deathtoll and Fallen Gate, I'm not sure the basis on which you're making comments like that since your past posts make me think you don't even play full time on this server.

Botting raids has always been a less efficient way to make money, if anything you guys should be mad at people who bot crafting/afk bot crew in zones and get all those delicious drops from ever spawning mobs~

Botting is here to stay as neiloch said, at one point i'm pretty sure a bot guild was like 2nd world wide when i was playing because the bot raid all used the magical debuff ears and switched the scouts over to magical weapons, the bot raid had like the highest raid wide in game lol.

So if you're talking about our dude selling stuff (which I'm guessing you are from the not so subtle hint of who it was).. man you need to investigate a little harder before complaining. I put up 5 items last night from our raids this week, those mobs we killed with 13 actual people... those 5 items you are so worried about were so bad that noone would take them. They were all literally worse than 30g legendary items off the broker.

And seriously dude, even if they sold (which they didn't, just ended up vendoring them), they would have made like what 30-60pp (I was hoping more people like you existed who see FABLED and auto pay w/e), for a week of raids. If this dude was doing the same thing but with 24 bots, he'd need to get 24 kronos a month, currently at 24pp.. thats 576pp a month. If a week of raids is only pulling in 60pp, then that dude is running a 336pp deficit every month. Seems like a great plan and something you should totally be worried about.

Instead of camping the broker throwing out wild accusations the moment you see a fabled item hit the window. Why not harass the jerks running gathering bots and actually ruining that market. Or the guys 24:7 spamming slr from ancients table and poets palace, hint hint, 90% of them are prolly bots.

“So if you're talking about our dude selling stuff (which I'm guessing you are from the not so subtle hint of who it was).. man you need to investigate a little harder before complaining. I put up 5 items last night from our raids this week, those mobs we killed with 13 actual people... those 5 items you are so worried about were so bad that noone would take them. They were all literally worse than 30g legendary items off the broker.

And seriously dude, even if they sold (which they didn't, just ended up vendoring them), they would have made like what 30-60pp (I was hoping more people like you existed who see FABLED and auto pay w/e), for a week of raids. If this dude was doing the same thing but with 24 bots, he'd need to get 24 kronos a month, currently at 24pp.. thats 576pp a month. If a week of raids is only pulling in 60pp, then that dude is running a 336pp deficit every month. Seems like a great plan and something you should totally be worried about.

Instead of camping the broker throwing out wild accusations the moment you see a fabled item hit the window. Why not harass the jerks running gathering bots and actually ruining that market. Or the guys 24:7 spamming slr from ancients table and poets palace, hint hint, 90% of them are prolly bots.”

Interesting that you make a new account to admit to a botting accusation while simultaniously saying it isn't a problem.